“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 17th envelope test was held during this session. The test object, sealed in the usual double envelopes, was the insurance slip for the manuscript of Jane’s ESP book, dated August 30,1965. A drawing of it is not necessary since the test data did not coincide by a wide margin. The data, and Seth’s explanation of the results, appear in their regular places in the session.

(At 8:30 PM this evening our landlady, Marian Spaziani, and a friend of hers visited us briefly. Marian and her friend, Helen Dyer, both know of the sessions but have not witnessed any. Helen’s husband recently died after an operation for lung cancer; this evening Helen described to Jane a recent experience in which she felt her husband was speaking to her while she slept. Helen told us she has dreamed of her husband many times, but felt this particular experience was something other than a dream; she stressed its clarity, its reassurance and simplicity.

(The session was held in our back room. Jane spoke while sitting down, in a quiet voice for the most part. Once again she was smoking as the session began; this meant her eyes had to open at least narrowly to find the ashtray, but she was looking down in the act and I could not actually tell whether or not they did open. Jane’s pace was quite slow, with many pauses, in the beginning. I should note here that Marian and Helen left us at 8:55, and that Helen lives just a block from us.)

(Jane now took a long pause, quite an unusual procedure after the opening salutation.)

(Jane delivered the above paragraph with many pauses.)

(See the 204th session. Philip is John Bradley’s entity name. To date 40 sessions have been witnessed out of 210. Jane’s eyes were now opening and closing rather frequently as she spoke.)

(Break at 9:27. Jane was dissociated as usual for a first delivery. Her eyes had opened and shut often. Her pace had been quite rapid after the slow beginning. She remembered the material concerning Helen Dyer, and now told me she had felt an immediate rapport with Helen when she entered our apartment this evening, and a desire to help her in some way. Helen has been in our place once before, perhaps a couple of years ago.

(In the 185th session Seth dealt to some extent with what he called Jane’s healing ability; one point he made was that the desire to help others would aid the development of this ability. Seth of course has given specific data on various physical ills for some witnesses, and for Jane and me. Whenever the advice was acted upon it worked out very well, whether the difficulty discussed was physical or psychological.

(At times Jane gets “feelings” about the physical condition of an individual, whether it is a friend or someone she passes on the street. Sometimes these intuitions involve the approaching death of the individual concerned. She has felt other psychological states also, and now notes them down when they occur. These developments have been quite recent. A recent example involved her sensing the breakup of the marriage of a friend with whom I work, some two weeks before the friend told anyone. I had suspected nothing amiss personally.

(Seth’s malignant diagnosis in this session represents the most drastic to date, and left Jane and me wondering about the best course of action to take in such cases. Jane resumed at a good rate, and with her eyes closed, at 9:39.)

(It was 9:45. I placed the test envelope in Jane’s lap while she gave voice to the above sentence. She gave no sign that she was aware of my action, other than a slight movement of her legs, but she picked up the envelope almost at once. Her eyes were still closed. She held the envelope in her right hand, making no effort to determine its contents by feeling, twisting, etc.)

(Break at 9:57. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes had remained closed, her pace had been quite slow. I had the impression as she spoke that she was struggling to sort out what she wanted to say.

(Jane said she was somewhat startled to feel the envelope touch her lap. She hadn’t expected a test, and I hadn’t mentioned it to her before the session. Actually I had prepared the test envelope some weeks ago.

(Jane said that at the moment she had no idea why she clung to the photograph idea. Although she was a little tired, she didn’t feel particularly bad. She now revealed that she had actually seen within three photographs, rather than the two mentioned. She saw these photos quite clearly, she said, and knew that two of them were in our album, and the third in a file of her own. From the descriptions given I recognized them also.

(Since Jane had developed the photograph idea so consistently in the test, we thought something must have happened to put her on that track, and we said aloud that we hoped Seth would deal with the reasons for this before ending the session.

(It was now time for the 19th Dr. Instream test. Jane’s pace was now again very slow. Although I could not see her doing so, her eyes must have opened a trifle to find the ashtray, since she was again smoking. She sat with one hand to her face, her head tipped down, speaking quietly. She took many pauses, some of them long. Resume at 10:06.)

(Jane’s voice was determined, her eyes still closed.)

(Jane’s eyes now opened wide. She stared at me as she lit a cigarette. Her eyes then closed.)

(Break at 10:28. Jane had been dissociated as usual. Her eyes opened slowly. Her pace however had been much faster.

(In the 197th session Seth suggested that I not wait for him to request an envelope test. In a recent session also he said it was not wise for such tests to be given at the end of a session, when Jane is tired. Hence I thought I had picked a good time to give her the test envelope. I did not anticipate that it would not be a good test because of previous information, or that it could interfere with subsequent tests.

(During break Jane relaxed on the bed. She began speaking from there after break, her head propped up on one hand, her eyes closed, her voice quite amused. Resume at 10:30.)

(End at 10:34. Jane was dissociated as usual.)